


I think it's salsa classes

by dracoxlovesxharry



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bitty's Tweets, Character Study, Family Dynamics, Gen, PFLAG, mentions of coming out, vague references to bullying and homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8336833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoxlovesxharry/pseuds/dracoxlovesxharry
Summary: @omgcheckplease also we made a pledge; she doesn't read my twitter & I don't ask her where she disappears every 3rd Thurs. of the month.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](http://notmissmarple.tumblr.com/post/152092135383/as-esterbrook-pointed-out-and-where-does-mama) tumblr post.
> 
> As [@esterbrook](http://esterbrook.tumblr.com) pointed out - “ And where does mama go once a month? Maybe … PFLAG meetings?”
> 
> [OMG! Check Please](http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com) belongs to [Ngozi](http://ngoziu.tumblr.com)

Suzanne started going to meetings shortly after the closet incident when Dicky was in seventh grade. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a PFLAG chapter in Madison, but there is one in Atlanta. So every third Thursday of the month she gets in her Volvo and drives an hour east on I-20.

Even if she’s wrong – though she doesn’t think she is – the other PFLAG parents are welcoming, and give her advice on how to help her son handle bullies. They give her names and numbers of superintendents to call if anything else happens. They give her support, and friendship, and the tools she needs to be the supportive parent her son needs her to be. 

One of the first things she learns at her meetings is; let your kid come out in their own time and on their own terms. 

She wishes Dicky felt comfortable telling her, especially after watching him and Jack dance around each other at the 4th of July barbecue. It’s late November now. Dicky is a junior in college, and he still hasn’t made any confessions.

Suzanne still goes to every meeting she can make it to. She helps plan events that she will never attend because she doesn’t want anyone from town to see her there and make any assumptions about her baby.

“So if Junior calls, where are you off to this week,” her husband asks.

“Oh, I thought I’d try that new salsa class down at the rec center,” she replies with a wink.

It’s a routine now. When Dicky calls the next evening and asks what she was doing the night before she deflects.

“You never did tell me your twitter handle,” or, “can you send me the link to that vlog you’re always making videos for.”

Eventually he stops asking. She’s sure he’s made his own assumptions about what she gets up to when she disappears the first Thursday of every month. 

Lately, there has been heavy pauses in their conversations where it seems that Dicky wants to tell her something. When they’re talking over skype she can see him working himself up to share something big. The house phone rings. The oven timer goes off. One of his teammates barges in and asks a question. He visibly deflates at whatever the interruption is. The moment is gone, and they move on to new pinterest recipes, or the latest Phelps/Bittle drama.

It’s been over eight years now, and still Suzanne goes to every meeting she can manage. She has vowed to continue to do whatever she can to support her son. She hopes one day soon he’ll call, or come back home, and he’ll no longer be afraid.


End file.
